Snowbird

In our hilly city by the Sound, we don’t know how to respond to a snowstorm. Our infrastructure is lacking and our geography is treacherous. Plus, we tend towards the wet and freezing rather than the dry and fluffy – this makes for a dangerous combination on the roads. At the Nerd’s Eye View HQ in Austria, a few inches of snow meant business as usual, but here on the West Coast, it means everything grinds to a dead stop. I am a-okay with that.

We left the house on Wednesday, during a brief break in the weather, and again today to pick up more groceries. We are now stocked up on pasta and canned goods and items that, should we lose power, will survive because holy cats, it’s cold out! We’ll just put everything on the back porch, won’t we? At noon today the thermometer read 24 degrees and that is too cold for the yogurt, I’m sure of it.

The biggest demand on our resources during this historic cold snap is tending to “our” hummingbird. The problem is the feeder location. Because it’s strategically placed so I can see it from my desk, I get an excellent view of the snow piling up on it, of the hummingbird become progressively more distraught as the contents turn solid, of the little guy swooping and buzzing and circling when the feeder is still inside because we brought it in the night before so it wouldn’t freeze.

 

He’s upset. From my desk, I can see it in his little bird body language. One of us – oh, we are suckers – tromps out to knock the snow off the thing so the bird can get his beak in, or we take the feeder in and refill it with warm hummingbird chow. Yesterday, J actually shoveled a path across our backyard so we could get to the feeder without needing the big boots.

When I first read up on hummingbirds I learned that they’re seen as fierce warrior types in Native American mythology. I don’t know about fierce, but the little dude sure is bossy. He has become The Man, we’re working for him. We are out there replacing the feeder or clearing the blocking inch of snow. The bird sits up in the tree – where we’re sure he has his nest – making all kinds of noise. “Hey, that thing froze solid, like, two hours ago, where have you been!” Or, “How do you think I’m supposed to eat with my dinner plate covered in snow? How’d you like YOUR dinner covered in snow?” Or, “Waiter! Excuse me, but this meal is COLD. Take it back and have the kitchen make me a HOT meal. You know what a HOT meal is, right?”  I’m pretty sure he is not leaving us a tip.

When winter first arrived, we wondered why our winged friend hadn’t migrated. We’d shout at him from the back steps. “What on earth is wrong with you? Shouldn’t you be in Mexico or Costa Rica or something?” He was unflappable. (Sorry about that awful pun.)  “Are you kidding? You think I’m going to get this kind of attention in a hoard of white shoe tourists? Off season destinations are the best.”

In addition to a second major dumping of snow, part deux of the storm is supposed to bring high winds. We have been making plans for what we’ll do if that’s the case. We don’t have chains for the car and we don’t have a generator, though we do have a propane camp stove. I hope the wind doesn’t knock us off the grid, but if it does, I’ll bet you any money that the first thing we cook up on the campstove is a fresh batch of hummingbird feed.